UK lap dancing suffers repressive new licensing

Lap Dance Association make their case in Parliament

Members of the Lap Dancing Association are to visit the Palace of Westminster later this month as part of their campaign against proposals to classify them as sex workers.

I don't suppose many select committees discuss lap dancing, not as part of official business anyway, says Philip Davies, the Tory MP for Shipley: I have no idea whether there will be an official visit to one of these clubs, but it is
always a good idea to see these things first-hand. John Whittingdale, who chairs the committee, can't believe what has landed in his lap: I have the best job in parliament,

The association has already submitted a report, which defends women's right to perform striptease.

It ends with the cheeky postscript: Our criticisers have obviously never visited a lap dancing club. The reality is that, if they had, they would realise that although the girls take their tops off, it is definitely they who wear the trousers.

Law passes final hurdles to criminalise sexual cartoons that may feature children (but its hard to tell most of the time)

The UK Government bill introduced a clause in Coroners and Justice Bill to criminalise the possession of non photographic but pornographic images of children with draconian penalties of up to 3 years in prison.

This bill has now cleared all parliamentary hurdles with hardly any meaningful debate whatsoever. A couple of half hearted concerns that the bill may criminalise thousands of innocent people (Eg Hentai fans) were glossed over on a one in million
possibility that paedophiles may work around existing prohibitions via use of animation.

Yesterday the Government was forced to accept Tory Peer Lord Waddington's free speech clause which says that criticising homosexual conduct is not, in itself, a crime.

An offence of inciting hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation was introduced by the Government last year, but the free speech defence, strongly opposed by the House of Commons, was inserted by former Home Secretary Waddington.

The latest round of votes took place this week with MPs voting to delete the clause on Monday and Peers voting to keep it.

Peers supported the clause by 179 votes to 135. In the House of Commons the Justice Secretary Jack Straw accepted the Lords vote. A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said the government was very disappointed at the Lords vote, adding: There is no doubt about the threshold of this offence. No freedom of expression section is needed to explain it. The threshold is a high one. The offence only covers words or behaviour that are threatening and intended to stir up hatred.

But she added the government could no longer delay the passage of the Coroners Bill. It is with considerable disappointment, therefore, that the government has agreed not to remove the freedom of expression section.